Touched by Venom is book one of the Dragon Temple Saga and begins as the remembrances of a much older person writing down her story and that of her times. When a book begins in this manner, as a reader you know the main character will win through because that person is telling the story. What you don't know is how that person got from the child to the adult. What choices were made? What demons were conquered and paths trod to bridge the difference between child and adult. As a reader, you are immediately dropped unprepared into a culture that is alien to our way of thinking -- the Dragon Temple controls everyone and everything. There are few ways to move from one economic strata to another and if you are a woman, then only a man can change your circumstances. It is in this world that Zarq Darquel begins her story.

(Source: Roc Trade)